It's not filler, I actually thought this was a very good episode unlike some others like the initial ones, the pace was good and it fleshed out all the characters.

Also the chameleon girl is really cool.

Chameleon girl is cool. And it's cool that Blake knows her personally. And it was nice to see all four girls in one episode for a change.

... But it really does feel like this whole SEASON is filler. It might just be me! I've been known to be wrong in the past a time or two (thousand.) It just feels like the plot is inching forward at a snail's pace.

Honestly it all has to do with the way the plot was set up for this volume.

Generally, if you split characters up you have to devote time to each of them still, which slows down overall pace but allows for a more diverse story. A time skip allows for characters to have had time to grow, and the world to change a bit, meaning you need to re-establish things a bit before you can really get things back to full speed, lest you leave the audience confused as to what's happened.

In this case, both happened. Te characters are split up and there was a time skip, that means they have to re-establish what's going on around each character individually and progress them individually. Doing both of these things at once slowed things to a crawl, especially because it's 4 characters, which means 4 times as many catch-ups, and a large spread of progress over the episodes.

Though now we're splitting a fifth time, since RNJR is splitting up...

All in all, the story is moving very slowly because of these factors. It's not filler, since filler is just random stuff put in to kill time, and this is all very plot important. That said, I understand how it can be offputting, as I've felt the same way. Unless this volume concludes with them at least cutting this number down a bit from 4, I can't imagine the next volume doing much better. This just isn't a good situation to be in with the story, especially not when volumes tend to be only a dozen or so episodes and we're presumably nearing this year's climax already.

Ren/Nora might have an upcoming fight with SuperCoolHorseGrimmDude. Ruby and Jaune might have to defend Qrow, or perhaps have to see Qrow die, or perhaps have to choose between staying with and protecting Qrow or leaving him to save Ren and Nora. Blake and Sun might have an end fight coming up, if Adam shows himself. (If Sun even survives the wound he got last time we saw him.) Weiss might have an end fight coming to escape the mansion. Oscar seems more in the start of his journey than the climax of it, so I don't really expect much of a finale from him. But those are all individual fights, with no cohesive ending among them. (Well duh, the team is split, of course it's not cohesive. But still, that means no over-arching ending. Bummer.) And Yang doesn't seem to have any finale coming up for her, either. :-(

There's also lots of speculation that Raven will show up and force Ruby to join her cult or something in exchange for Qrow's life. I don't personally see that happening. I don't think Raven gives a toot about Ruby, and I think if she was planning to help Qrow, she would have done so already. But it is a theory that's floating around.

Anyways, the point was, what do you guys think will happen for this season's finale?

They'll end it on cliffhangers. Weiss and Yang we're likely to just departing and not doing anything special; Blake is up in the air but there's no way she's getting her closure already.

As for the latest episode it was a bit unclear but I think the big grim is going towards Ruby and Jaune, right? Or maybe it was some new village..honestly I didn't really understand.

I think Ren's aura was a bit unclear as well. It appears to be some sort of soothing ability, but I believe it also comes with some sort of cloaking his presence(and people touched). I might be wrong of course, maybe I just look too much into it and it's really just the calming.

They'll end it on cliffhangers. Weiss and Yang we're likely to just departing and not doing anything special; Blake is up in the air but there's no way she's getting her closure already.

As for the latest episode it was a bit unclear but I think the big grim is going towards Ruby and Jaune, right? Or maybe it was some new village..honestly I didn't really understand.

I think Ren's aura was a bit unclear as well. It appears to be some sort of soothing ability, but I believe it also comes with some sort of cloaking his presence(and people touched). I might be wrong of course, maybe I just look too much into it and it's really just the calming.

Yeah, I had to look up Ren's semblance on the rwby wiki. I couldn't tell if it was just "drugging" him (for lack of a better word) to be calm, or cloaking him from the Grimm, or what. Wiki says it aids in avoiding detection from Grimm, and it apparently helps soothe and calm people as well.

And I'm not sure where the Grimm is heading. Towards the village where Ruby and Jaune are would honestly make the most sense, since Grimm are attracted to negative emotions. I was expecting them to get attacked repeatedly ever since Qrow was wounded, for one because Qrow was keeping the Grimm off them in the first place, and two because the worry and fear over Qrow's wound would be negative emotions which would draw more Grimm.

But I can't quite tell where the Grimm is heading. I assumed towards Ren and Nora since they are in his lair, but after you mentioned it, you're right. It might be heading towards the dead village, or some other village.

I think Ren's semblance is simply the ability to enter a state wherein he's calmed and focused. When in contact with others, he can transmit it to them as well. Since Grimm sense negative emotions it seems reasonable that if you can completely block out those emotions you'd basically be cloaked to them.

Did they announce how many episodes it'd be total or we can only guess it?

The last I heard, it was going to be 12 episodes. And we've seen 11 of them, which would make this weekend's episode the finale. I hope I'm wrong though. I hope we get closer to 15 episodes, because there are just so many story lines and loose ends that are unlikely to be tied up if the next episode is truly the finale.

My guess for the finale, then, is a few minutes of watching Weiss escape, a few minutes of watching Yang drive off into the sunset on her bike, a few minutes of Blake trying to talk sense to the White Fang (and either failing or splintering it completely into two White Fangs,) a few minutes of RNJR fighting that cool Grimm (and I just don't see how they could win that fight, if that thing has taken down full-blown, adult, professional huntsmen, although apparently it was a lone huntsman, not a team of them. But still, they are children and it took down an adult. I'm going to need a chart of everyone's power level so I can properly predict the outcomes of some of these fights, because I swear to god, their power levels rise and fall depending on whether or not they are supposed to win.) Anyways! And a few minutes of the bad guys ominously talking.

But I hope I'm wrong on all of that, too, because it does nothing to advance Oscar's story line, and leaves a cliffhanger on the rest of the characters. >< RT hates us.

Finally saw the last three episodes and caught up. really like the new grimm's villian's design and wish they had used the dark fog effect on all of the nevermore grimm's designs like they did in that flashback, really improved on it.

Ren's semblence seems to just straight up be inner peace, very interesting and would explain how mellow he's been through the whole series, lol.

I liked this finale quite a bit. I had my doubts, but my doubts were wrong!

I liked seeing the Grimm in action. And it does explain how a single huntsman, even an adult one, might fail, while a team of huntsmen, even teenage ones, might win.

We got to see more of Ren's semblance in action, and I liked that it was Jaune who carried Qrow away to safety, even after his anger at Qrow for using Ruby as bait. Ren and Nora are a canon ship, and I liked how that went. Ruby's letter was really sweet. Weiss, Yang, and Blake were all left on hopeful notes. All kind of uplifting!

But still with caution towards the future, given Lionheart. I liked it.

I made a fuss about Blake slapping Sun (and I still disagree with it, domestic abuse isn't funny and shouldn't be used for comedic effect, if that's what they were aiming for.) But when Nora slapped Ren in this one, I did not mind so much. Blake was slapping Sun out of anger, and she slapped him multiple times while he was trying to talk to her. Nora slapped Ren once, and only once, to snap him out of his funk and save his life. The motives were vastly different. One, showing someone displeasure, the other, saving someone's life. The emotions were different. One, anger, the other, love.

So yeah, call me a hypocrite if you want, but I see those slaps as completely different.

What is RWBY?
It's an animated show created by Rooster Teeth that will have it's first episode revealed at RTX 2013 (July 5th to 7th in Austin Texas) and 4 trailers will be released prior to that, 2 of which are already out. The Red trailer was released on November 7th, 2012, the White trailer was released on Valentine's Day and The Black trailer was released on March 22nd, 2013.